Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.
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Alcuin of York
AD 804
The passover was strictly the fourteenth day of the month, the day on which the lamb was killed in the evening: the seven days following were called the days of unleavened bread, in which nothing leavened ought tobe found in their houses. Yet we find the day of the passover reckoned among the days of unleavened bread: Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, Where will you that we prepare for you to eat the passover? And here also in like manner: That they might eat the passover; the passover here signifying not the sacrifice of the lamb, which took place the fourteenth day at evening, but the great festival which was celebrated on the fifteenth day, after the sacrifice of the lamb. Our Lord, like therest of the Jews, kept the passover on the fourteenth day: on the fifteenth day, when the great festival was held, He was crucified. His immolation however began on the fourteenth day, from the time that He was taken in the garden.
Or a...
1. Let us now consider, so far as indicated by the evangelist John, what was done with, or in regard to, our Lord Jesus Christ, when brought before Pontius Pilate the governor. For he returns to the place of his narrative where he had left it, to explain the denial of Peter. He had already, you know, said, And Annas sent Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest: and having returned from where he had dismissed Peter as he was warming himself at the fire in the hall, after completing the whole of his denial, which was thrice repeated, he says, Then they bring Jesus unto Caiaphas into the hall of judgment (pretorium); for he had said that He was sent to Caiaphas by his colleague and father-in-law Annas. But if to Caiaphas, why into the hall of judgment? Nothing else is thereby meant to be understood than the place where Pilate the governor dwelt. And therefore, either for some urgent reason Caiaphas had proceeded from the house of Annas, where both had met to give Jesus a hearing, to the g...
The Evangelist returns to the part where he had left off, in order to relate Peter's denial: Then led they Jesus to Caiaphas to the hall of judgment: to Caiaphas from his colleague and father in law Annas, as has been said. But If to Caiaphas, how to thepraetorium, which was the place where the governor Pilate resided;.
Where then for some urgent reason Caiaphas proceeded from the house of Annas, where both had been sitting, to the praetorium of the governor, and left Jesus to the hearing of his father in law: or Pilate had established the praetorium in the house of Caiaphas, which was large enough to afford a separate lodging to its owner, and the governor at the same time.
According to Matthew, When the morning came, they led Him away, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate. But He was to have been led to Caiaphas at first. How is it then that He was brought to him so late? The truth is, now He was going as it were acommitted criminal, Caiaphas having already determined on His death. An...
The praetorium is the place where the praetor sat. Praetors were called prefects and preceptors, because they issue decrees.
It was the custom of the Jews when they condemned any oneto death, to notify it to the governor, by delivering the man bound.
Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the prætorium. To the house and hall of Pilate; for he was Prætor, that Isaiah , both civil and criminal judge of Judæa. S. Augustine reads (inaccurately) unto Caiaphas into the Prætorium, and therefore was obliged to say either that Caiaphas came to the house of Pilate, or that they both lived in the same house, though the contrary is plain from the Gospel.
Every magistrate who had an army under him, was called Prtor, a preundo. And the place in which he held trials was called Prtorium; a place in which criminals were tried, for which purpose Jesus was brought thither by the Chief Priests.
But they themselves entered not into the judgment-hall lest they should be defiled (by entering the house of the heathen governor), but that they might (as pure and clean) eat the Passover. The Passover does not here mean the Paschal Lamb (as SS. Chrysostom and Cyril suppose), for that they had eaten the day before; but the Paschal victims, which were sacrifi...
Judge righteous judgment, and Thou shalt not slay the innocent and just man, were the express injunctions of the Law and the Word of God. These miserable men could not help being ashamed of their lack of charges against Him; but, finding their fury against Christ to be without excuse, and being prevented from killing Him with their own hands by the approach of the atoning sacrifice (for they were about to sacrifice the Paschal lamb, according to the Law, which yet with them had lost its power), they bring Him to Pilate; trusting, in their gross folly, that they would not be quite implicated in the charge of shedding blood unjustly if they did not slay Him themselves, but only brought Him to suffer death at the hands of another; though what was in their hearts was altogether at variance with the Mosaic Law. And we must convict them, besides, of the greatest folly in acting as follows. For, while sentencing the sinless One to the doom of death, and bringing down upon their own heads the ...
That they might eat the Pasch. They, who by the Pasch will always understand the paschal-lamb, look upon it certain from these words, that the Scribes and Pharisees at least, had deferred eating the paschal-lamb, till Friday the 15th day, in the evening: but there are passages in the Scripture, which shew, that the word Pasch, or Phase, comprehended not only the paschal sacrifice of the lamb, but also the sacrifices, that were to be eaten with unleavened bread, during the seven days of the paschal solemnity, as Deuteronomy xvi. 2. thou shalt offer up the Phase, or Pasch, to the Lord, of sheep and oxen. And 1 Paralipomenon xxxv. 8. They gave to the priests to make the Phase, or Pasch, in altogether two thousand six hundred small cattle, and three hundred oxen. The oxen, therefore, were also given, to make up the Pasch, and were comprehended by the word Pasch, or Phase. It might, therefore, be these paschal sacrifices, and not the paschal-lamb, which the priests designed to partake of, a...
He was led to Caiaphas before the cock crowed, but early in the morning to Pilate. Whereby the Evangelist shows, that all that night of examination, ended inproving nothing against Him; and that He was sent to Pilate in consequence. But leaving what passed then to the other Evangelists, he goes to what followed.
For the Jews were then celebrating the passover; He Himself celebrated it one day before, reserving His own death for the sixth day; on which day the old passover was kept. Or, perhaps, the passover means the whole season.
Pilate however seeing Him bound, and such numbers conducting Him, supposed that they had not unquestionable evidence against Him, so proceeds to ask the question : And said, What accusation bring you against this Man? For it was absurd, he said, to take the trial out of his hands, and yet give him the punishment. They in reply bring forward no positive charge but only their own conjectures: They answered and said to him, If He were not a malefactor, we would ...
Pilate however proceeds in a more gentle way: Pilate then went out to them.
As if to say, Since you will only have such a trial as will suit you, and are proud, as if you never did any thing profane, take you Him, and condemn Him; I will not be made a judge for such a purpose.
